The Don Siegleman Prosecution - Player - Judge Mark Everett Fuller

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U.S. District Judge

Mark E

verett

Fuller

Chief Judge Mark E. Fuller,

U.S. District Court for the Middle District of

Alabama

;

takeholder &

former

President of Doss Aviation

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Article

Mark Fuller and the Siegelman Case

by Scott Horton of Harper's "No Comment"

Over the last two months I have examined many different

aspects of the Justice Department’s prosecution of former

Governor Don E. Siegelman. The controversy around Karl Rove

and the Justice Department is often cast as a scandal

concerning the U.S.

Attorneys

and the prosecutorial function.

But the scandal actually has more to do with the administration

of justice—and thus with the role of the judiciary.

As I noted, four federal judges have played a role in the

Siegelman case—two of them served as prosecutors, building

and bringing the case, and two in hearing the charges. Of the

latter group, the one who claims title to being “Siegelman’s

judge” is Mark Everett Fuller. Fuller presided over Governor

Siegelman’s trial and sentenced him to prison.

In a series of posts starting today and continuing over the next

couple of weeks, I am going to examine Fuller’s role in the

Siegelman case: who is he? How did he come to be a federal

judge? How did he conduct the trial? The Siegelman case, I

believe, offers us great insight into the broader issue of the

politicization of the criminal justice process, an issue that is front

and center in the American political dialogue today.

First, Some Background

In 2002, Don Siegelman lost the governorship of Alabama to

Bob Riley by 3,000 votes, raising suspicions of electronic vote

tampering. According to an affid

vit

iven by

lifelong

Republican Dana Jill Simpson, on November

18, 2002, soon

after Siegelman’s defeat, a conference call was

held among Bob

Riley’s senior aides, and during the call William

Canary, a

prominent Alabama Republican, said “not to worry

about Don

Siegelman” because “his girls”— meaning two U.S.

Attorneys

Alice Martin and Canary’s wife Leura, both of whom

subsequently indicted Siegelman—would “take care” of the

governor; furthermore, Karl Rove was described as “pursuing”

Siegelman with help from U.S.

Attorneys

in Alabama. (Time has

a thorough article on the issue, with a response from Canary.)

In November 2003, one year after Siegelman’s defeat, the

Mobile Press-Register published a poll showing that in the event

of a rematch between Riley and Siegelman, Siegelman would

prevail

[

Bill Barrow, “Riley’s Ratings are Low: Governor

Would

Trail Moore, Siegelman in 2006 Race,” Mobile Press-

Nov. 16, 2003, p. 6.

]

I spoke with sources within the

Alabama

GOP who told me that this poll set off alarm bells and

was cause

for a number of meetings and discussions about how

to deal

with the “Siegelman problem.” Before long, I believe, a

solution

to that problem manifested itself in the form of an

indictment.

The Tuscaloosa Case

In May 2004, Alice Martin brought the case on claims that

Governor Siegelman, with two other men, had been involved in

an effort to rig bids on a state project in Tuscaloosa. After a

series of recusals, the case came before the Chief Judge of the

Northern District, U.W. Clemon, in Birmingham. As reported in

the Montgomery Advertiser, Martin was opposed to Clemon

handling the case and attempted to force his recusal. Clemon,

however, rejected the Justice Department’s request that he step

aside. He also refused to allow the defense to portray the

proceedings as a “political conspiracy,” but also expressed

skepticism that the government had enough evidence to make

out a case of conspiracy, which was the principal count. In my

analysis of the case, I found that Clemon asked penetrating

questions of the prosecutors, and when their answers reinforced

his suspicions, he demanded that they present a prime facie

showing of their case before allowing the matter to proceed.

When they were unable to do this, Judge Clemon dismissed the

conspiracy case with prejudice, and with that, the first effort to

prosecute Siegelman imploded in October 2004.

Enter Mark Fuller

But there was more to come. In October 2005, federal

prosecutors indicted Siegelman on new corruption charges in

Montgomery, Alabama, a different judicial district distinct from

the Northern Alabama district in which Clemon had previously

dismissed similar charges without prejudice. In theory, federal

judges are assigned to cases at random. But according to a well-

placed Alabama GOP source who wishes to remain anonymous,

some senior figures in the Alabama GOP appear to have known

from the start that this case was going to be handled by a man

they counted a friend, namely, George W. Bush–appointee Mark

Fuller. Regardless of whether the GOP had the power to

influence case assignments, Mark Everett Fuller was in fact

assigned as judge who presided over the grand jury

proceedings in this second effort to prosecute Siegelman.

Fuller was born in 1958 into a well-to-do family with an

entrenched position in Alabama Republican politics. I spoke with

some of his former college classmates, none of who wanted to

be named. They described him as a decent student—though

never an intellectual standout. Fuller was a member of the

Tuscaloosa chapter of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He is

repeatedly described as being right at the center of the

University of Alabama’s fraternity culture, and all who recall him

remember that he was very deeply involved in Alabama

Republican politics.

Fuller was nominated by President Bush and confirmed to the

federal bench in November 2002. His nomination proved

completely uneventful, and he was whisked through the review

process. While Washington, D.C.-based organizations like

People for the American Way and the Alliance for Justice were

prepared for battle over Bush judicial nominations, Fuller himself

was not a target.

Prior to his appointment in 2002, Fuller had no meaningful

judicial experience, but he had served for five years as a

prosecutor as District Attorney for Alabama’s 12th Judicial

Circuit. So while his qualifications were fairly thin—he had

neither judicial nor federal prosecutorial experience, which are

usually considered desirable for candidates for a federal

judgeship—his experience met the minimal threshold for a

federal judgeship. Significantly, he had solid backing from the

Alabama Congressional delegation—from its two Republican

senators, and from Alabama’s powerful Second District

Congressman, Terry Everett, Fuller’s mentor.

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More about Judge Mark Fuller

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__________________________________________________________________________________________

Sponsored by Friends of Don Siegelman 2007
<feedb ack>________________________________________________________________________________
__________

JUDGES
MARK FULLER

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Judge Mark Fuller

photo by Phil Fleming
Chief Judge Mark E. Fuller,
U.S. District Court for the Middle
District of Alabama, stakeholder
and former President of Doss
Avaitaion

Conflict of Interest
...........................
In the first chapter of the
Code of Conduct
for United States Judges,
it says, in part:

"...a judge ... should not serve
as an officer, director, active
partner, manager, advisor, or
employee of any business
other than a business closely
held and controlled by
members of the judge's family.",
<link to the whole code>

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